Founding National Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chekwas Okorie, spoke with LAWRENCE NJOKU, on state of the country and the urgent task before President Bola Tinubu, to salvage Nigeria from the precipice.For some of us who were old enough to witness that independence celebration, never! I was already seven years old when Nigeria gained independence in 1960. I was in primary school and it was so well celebrated. We thought that Eldorado had finally come, even though some of us at that age did not know what to expect but the teachers continued to impress on us that the future will be glorious and that we are lucky to have acquired independence. And of course, we also had a subject even at that primary level called Civic. Civic is a social science that teaches the citizens their rights and responsibilities. So, as early as primary school, we were being nurtured and groomed to have a high sense of responsibility and patriotism. As a matter of fact, three years after independence, the Federal Republic of Nigeria was declared. That was in 1963 and the same year, we had four regions and these regions had a reasonable level of autonomy. They were growing at their own pace. There was healthy competition. Revenue allocation by the federation was based on fifty per cent derivation. No region was envious of the other in the sense of envy and hatred.The division now is wider; so visible that even a person in the primary school will tell you that Nigeria is not one country. It is worse than when Chief Obafemi Awolowo described it as ‘a geographical expression’ meaning it was a country of so many nation-states. Presently, the people in the West are talking about Oduduwa Republic; those in the Niger Delta are talking about Niger Delta Republic; those in the Southeast are talking about Biafra; those in the north are talking about the Caliphate Republic. These are things nobody talked about in the past.It started with the military intervention we had in 1966 when coups and counter-coups put power in the hands of military officers from one part of the country, who felt that the best thing to do, to perpetuate themselves in power, was to put the country in their own hands and they began to come with policies that suited them. Because they carried guns, nobody could dare talk to them or voice out some words of dissent about what was going on. They sat down in one place in the early 70s and balkanised Nigeria into 774 local governments as they liked. Desert areas were converted to local governments even if people were not living there. They thought that a sense of conquest was what Nigeria needed to grow not knowing that what they did was to retrogress the country.What was handed over to us is such that no politician, no leader no matter the strategy he comes to office with, can succeed with the 1999 Constitution as the basis for governance. I keep saying to those of us who are Christians, that only Jesus Christ can govern Nigeria successfully because of the kind of constitution we have. For anybody to succeed, this country needs to be thoroughly restructured to allow the federating units or states as we have them at the moment the latitude to grow on their own. There should be a national conference where Nigerians can come together and chart the way forward and whatever they resolve should go through a referendum which the military couldn’t do over the 1999 Constitution and once a referendum has approved it, Nigeria will now experience exponential growth.The 2014 conference was the best we have ever had. Most of the decisions were by consensus. We had looked up to the implementation of those recommendations that took care of most of the things I am saying here. I was not at that conference but that will not stop me from commending those who were there for the wonderful work done. But the president we had (Jonathan) lacked the liver to implement it and the next president (Buhari) who came after him in one of his earliest statements said that he would not touch the recommendations even with a long spoon. He never did. That is why when I am talking about constitutional conference this time, I am saying so based on my confidence that President Tinubu and some of us were in the trenches, fighting for true federalism and he is one person who believes that true federal structure for Nigeria will usher in exponential growth and unprecedented unity among the people.He has started well by removing subsidy on fuel and unifying the exchange rate. These are policy decisions that should be pursued until their objectives are realised. The only thing I urged him to look into is the fact that there are sufferings everywhere; there are certain things that should be liberalised. Labour Unions have come up with a number of recommendations, which they have taken to the table; I would like the President to look at those recommendations generally. There is no doubt that more revenues have come into government coffers as a result of those policies, he should use them to see the extent he can meet the requirements of Labour. It will be a disaster if the NLC goes on industrial strike and this will erode the confidence of the people in his government. Government should listen to Labour unions.